>We're surely all familiar with the problem arising from
>the concentrated incentives of pressure groups to impose costs on others
>where those costs are so diffused as not to be worth organizing against by
>the much larger number of losers.

This (as Max knows but did not explicitly mention) is the
domain of a fascinating branch of economics known as
"Public Choice" founded by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock.

Here's a reference to a primer on public choice theory
which I've heard recommended, though I've not read (having
read some of the original work published in the early
60's when the discipline was founded):

>
>Come to think of it, they *don't* generally teach that in Politics 101, but
>they should. A good dose of Frederic Bastiat's classic essay Ce qu'on voit
>et ce qu'on ne voit pas (or Henry Hazlitt's extended version in Economics
>in One Lesson would help clarify many discussions on political economy.
>

AKA "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen". A great essay which
uses the allegory of a broken window to demolish a popular
fallacy, usually manifested as enthusiasm for wartime
"stimulus" to an economy.